Allstate Sends Blogger on Road Trips to Promo its Roadside Assistance

To bring its Good Hands Roadside Assistance service to life, Allstate handed sports blogger Spencer Hall of edsbs.com (Every Day Should be Saturday) the keys to a branded SUV in which he is traveling to football games across the country through Jan. 10.

“In a survey we found that college football fans are 21 percent more likely to take more than five road trips of 25 miles, because they want to go to the game. It made sense for us to look for some kind of partner that would be well known to those fans,” Lisa Jillson, senior manger-integrated marketing at Allstate, told Buzz. “So we thought let’s send Spencer on a road trip. It was a natural tie in to this product, because you can’t go on a road trip without some kind of back-up plan in case your car doesn’t completely get you where you want to go.”

Hall plans to travel a total of 6,000 miles and blog about the experience along the way. He’s also soliciting suggestions from his readers, as well as on Twitter, for places to stop on his travels. Once he reaches his destination, Hall hooks up with Allstate at a restaurant in close proximity to the stadium where that day’s game is being played. The bar section of the restaurant is fully branded and staffed by brand ambassadors equipped with iPads ready to sign up consumers for the roadside service. Consumers receive a branded blanket as a reward for signing up.

Hall and a former football player, who does media outreach the day before the game, engage the audience with a Q&A session and football trivia. The Allstate team also makes hourly announcements about a chance to win tickets for that day’s game, as well as chance to win two tickets to the Jan. 4 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, by opting in to receive more information about Allstate’s roadside service. Winners are announced on-site at the end of each event.

Hall’s next stop will be San Antonio for the Valero Bowl on Dec. 29. Visit his blog or goodhandsroadside.com for more information. Agencies: Octagon, Norwalk, CT; Taylor PR, New York City.

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